Re: [Win95]

From: Daniel Koepke (dkoepke@california.com)
Date: 02/09/97


On Sat, 8 Feb 1997, Jeremy Elson wrote:

> > So syslog.CRASH for all practical purposes is worthless in tracking
> > down crashes.  Perhaps renaming to syslog.REBOOT in the stock
> > distribution would be better.  Or completely eliminating it since,
> > IMO, it's worthless and misleading.
> 
> Well, let me explain why it's there before you call it worthless.  I agree
> that for *you*, specifically, it is worthless -- but then, you probably
> understand how the code works better than 95% of the other people who use
> it, so syslog.CRASH may not be worthless for everyone.

I perhaps was unclear in my last line.  I didn't mean it was totally
worthless, I meant it was worthless in tracking down *actual* crashes
(like Bus Errors and Seg Faults).  Thus, the name is misleading and
confusion persists because people now think that "syslog.CRASH" is
going to provide some insight as to what went wrong with their code
that caused a crash.

Technically, a problem with bind, socket, getrusage, or whatnot is
not a crash, it just prevents the mud from running.  I think a big
problem with the autorun script is that it continues to run after
these errors infinitely.  If after three tries and the mud is still
encountering the same error, I think it's safe to exit from the
script and report (roughly) why the script failed.

Furthermore, I propose changing the name of syslog.CRASH, which is
misleading and leads to more explanations of 'gdb' (perhaps if
someone has written a nice tutorial of our friendly GNU debugger
it could be included in the CircleMud distribution?) and what the
syslog.CRASH file *really* does.  Perhaps to syslog.REBOOT or
syslog.FAILED.

Note also that with the current behaviour of the 'autorun' script,
the syslog.CRASH file is created even when the mud is normally
rebooted.  This can lead newbies to believe that the mud is crashing
when it's really just rebooting.

> First, I have to explain that the one thing that annoys me most about
> CircleMUD's existance is all the mail I get from clueless MUD-imp
> wannabees.  In other words, people who know *nothing* about UNIX, C,
> programming in general, or even how to use "tar", but want to run a MUD
> anyway because they're pissed at the imp of their old MUD or just think it
> would be a cool power trip to have their own MUD.  Clueless MUD imps
> monopolize huge amounts of the time I devote to responding to MUD email.
> (To be civil, I won't name names, but I could put together a *highly*
> amusing collection of email I've gotten over the past few years ;-)).

Memories...Like far corners of our mind...Memories...Like shadows
of past times...Memories....

Okay, so I can't carry a tune very well...:)

> Anyway, the point I'm rambling to is that the "autorun" script can lead to
> very confusing behavior for people who don't understand how CircleMUD
> works.  This was an accident and I didn't realize what the confusing
> behavior was until I finally was able to find the common thread tying
> together a bunch of email I got from some very confused imps over the
> course of several months.

Confusing behaviour persists and much of it is caused by what was
added to prevent confusion.  I think one of the reasons why you have
not received as much e-mail concerning simplistic problems as late
(you did say that, yes?) is because more people are getting the mud
to work, but they still have no clue as to what is going on.  In
essence, you are just letting the clueless people get further on in
the process and startup a completely stock mud.  Then you get these
same clueless people asking questions on the mailing list (or rather,
asking for everyone else to code for them).

It's because of this I wish we could imbed a message into a .tar
file:

  "READ THE README FILE AND DOCUMENTATION, RUN CONFIGURE AND MAKE
   THE MUD.  IF NOT EVERYTHING GOES SMOOTHLY WITH THOSE VERY SIMPLE
   INSTRUCTIONS, THEN THE UNIVERSAL FIX IS: rm -r circle30bpl11

   IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO CODE SOMETHING, THEN YOU MAY ASK FOR 
   HELP ON THE CIRCLEMUD MAILING LIST.  IF YOU WANT THE CODE FOR A
   FEATURE CHECK THE FTP SITE OR SNIPPETS SITE.  IF IT'S NOT AT
   EITHER OF THOSE PLACES, THEN THERE IS ANOTHER PLACE THAT HAS ALL
   THE THINGS YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE FOR A MUD: a book on C.  READ
   ONE OR TWO OR TWELVE AND THEN TRY IT FOR YOURSELF."

> Sorry, I didn't mean for this mail to be so long.. the point is just that
> although *you*, an expert user, know how to use "tail" and know that
> autorun stashes logs in the 'log' directory, a newbie user does not know
> these things.  For them, seeing a file appear called "syslog.CRASH" that
> says "bind: port already in use", or something can be a big help.

That wasn't long.  When I go on a rant, you better flee with your
incoming box or you'll find a chunck of diskspace missing :)


--
Daniel Koepke
dkoepke@california.com
Forgive me father, for I am sin.


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